Ian Anderson is Now a Chart Topping Classical Artist

Ian Anderson, one-time winner of a Grammy Award for Best Metal Act, has hit another benchmark. Jethro Tull has the number one classical album in the USA this week.

Jethro Tull: The String Quartets by The Carducci Quarter (O’Hara) and featuring Ian Anderson is classical interpretations of songs spanning the Jethro Tull era across the past 50 years.

“The thing about this is, I am not doing classical music,” Anderson tells Noise11.com. “This is rock music done with a switch of the acoustic instruments of an orchestra (or in this case a string quartet). Whilst you are working within the traditions of classic (with a small c) it doesn’t turn it into classical music. It still has its origins of the Jethro Tull repertoire. I think what we tried to do was put it “in the style of classical music”. But that doesn’t make it classical. Most classical music is 200-300 years old and as much as some of us might want to wave a magic wand (or baton) it’s not possible to recreate (and why would you want to). That was then and this is now”.